Love Is Sacrifice
by sapph89
Summary: A challenge that was posted on Paradise Lost for February, and this is what I came up with. What the love between Booth and Bones looks like to the woman most of us love to hate.


By: Kat

Rating: T

Summary: What Love Means according to Camille Saroyan

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Bones. Fox, Kathy Reichs, and Hart Hansen have that pleasure. But if it were up to me, I would permanently borrow Booth and Hodgins. They are both very yummy. Don't you agree?

Pairing: Booth/Brennan in the abstract and non physical sense

Spoilers: Season 2 and above and especially The Wannabe in the Weeds.

Love Means…Sacrifice

They loved each other. He knew it, she knew, hell, even the woman who had once tried to come between the two, knew it. She had asked what would happen if she were to fire his Bones, and in that instant, that very second that the words left her mouth, she knew that it was one of the most ludicrous questions she had ever asked. Ever.

Even knowing that, knowing that she was a fool to ask that question, she was surprised at the vehemence that he responded with. He had looked her square in the eye, the attention he paid her as he responded surprised and frightened her to realize was the same he would place on a suspect in interrogation. His voice shook her even more than the look had. His words, even now, were seared into her mind. "I'm with Bones, Cam. All the way. Don't doubt it for a second"

Those words, the tone, the look, all spoke of love, respect, and a type of friendship that Camille Saroyan had never know before. So lost in the quiet realization she almost missed the softening of his glare, but the changed tone of his voice was enough to call her back to reality.

The words he spoke after that quiet declaration were unimportant now. The revelation of his then unrealized love for the brilliant Doctor clear to her in that moment.

And now as she watched the Army Honor guard lower his cold and lifeless body into the ground, she couldn't help but think back to all too recent day that he showed his love in one of the most obvious and permanent ways.

They were all there, sitting and listening to Brennan belt out Cyndi Lauper's _Girls Just Want to Have Fun,_ in shock at the new found knowledge that not only could Brennan solve murders, that she could sing above average as well. Then a voice that Cam had never heard before called his name, and before she could even begin to start connecting what was being said, the deafening sound of a gun firing and the acrid scent of cordite filled the once happy room. Silence rang for a precious few milliseconds before another shot rang out and the smell of cordite and gunpowder became overpowering in the stagnant air of the karaoke bar.

Then all Cam could see was Seeley, lying there on the floor with blood spilling from a hole in his chest, a hole that not only should not have been there, but was dangerously close to his heart. Then the horrific view was obstructed by the shaking hands of Dr. Temperance Brennan.

Cam could still hear the reserved doctor pleading for Booth to hold on. To stay awake for the ambulance that was even now on it's way. To stay with her. To just hold on. To fight. But the most piercing thing that Cam would remember hearing for years to come was the quiet question that came from Booth's lips as more and more of his blood spilled between the clenching fingers of a now sobbing Bones.

"You're ok, right Bones? She didn't hit you?"

And it seemed that while Temperance was fighting to clear her throat to respond. Booth's body gave an almighty shudder, and then he was still, and his eyes, his big soulful and beautiful eyes became dull and void of the charisma and laughter and love and life that Cam had know and relied on for years. All of it was gone. He was gone

And now, as Camille Saroyan watched the body of Seeley Booth being lowered into the ground, she knew that Booth's sacrifice of his life, of the possibility of watching his son grow up, of maybe getting married and having even more children, was one that he would have made over and over and over again. Because he loved his Bones with every ounce of humanity in him, and Cam knew there was no way he would have lived if something had happened to his love.

Booth had sacrificed his future, all of it, for love. And Cam knew that if he had the choice, he would do it all over again. Because as he had once told her so many long years ago when they had been dating: love is the willingness to sacrifice anything for the person that made you complete.

And he did.


End file.
